


The Longest Night

by Anti_kate



Category: Slow Show - mia_ugly
Genre: Angst and trees, Betrayal Or Is It, Harry the Rabbit, Inspired by Fanfiction, Inspired by Slow Show - mia_ugly, Inspired by some faith (the slow show fandom remix), Lost in the Woods, M/M, Missing Scenes from Season 4, No betas we fall like the swords of the inquisitors, Season 4 needed more William, Slow Show, Warlock the TV Show, William (Warlock) POV, Winter Solstice, vaguely canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:08:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21769636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anti_kate/pseuds/Anti_kate
Summary: God, he was tired, and it had only a been a few weeks. And he missed Julia, and he even missed Erasmus. It was strange, to be able to bear neither the man’s presence nor his absence.
Relationships: William (Warlock)/Erasmus (Warlock)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 55
Collections: Slow Show Metaverse, Warlock fic





	1. Don’t Die

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Slow Show](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20395261) by [mia_ugly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia_ugly/pseuds/mia_ugly). 



They shouldn’t have come to the village. But William was exhausted, and Joshua’s face was pale and drawn, and even the damn dog was all ribs and hollow-eyed glances at the meagre supplies in the food bag.

“Now, dog,” William heard himself saying one morning when the dog was giving him a piteous stare, “this is for the boy. I know you’re hungry, so why don’t you go catch a rabbit, eh?”

The dog tilted his head, as if saying, _I’m not a terrier, you daft man, I’ve got less chance of catching a rabbit than you do._

Truth be told, the bag was almost empty, and the tiny hut they’d been holed up in grew more oppressive by the day. William remembered the last village they’d skirted before they’d had the luck of finding the hut. It had smelled like cooking fires, baking bread, warmth.

The hut was better than sleeping in ditches or under hedges, but only just. It wasn’t well-sealed and at night the wind cut through the chinks in the logs. At least the snow was holding off. But it wouldn’t be long before they’d be snowed in without food, and he’d promised Erasmus that they’d try not to die. Not that he wanted to die at all, but imagining Erasmus’ thin-lipped disapproval upon finding their frozen corpses was a terrifying thought.

_Your only job was to not die, and you fucked that right up._

Well, he wasn’t going to fuck it up, and they were going to live.

So he gave the boy the last of the jerky and rugged him up in his ragged layers, and pulled his own threadbare cloak around his shoulders. He thought long and hard about what to do with the sword, but finally strapped it to his waist, feeling vaguely ridiculous about it. He barely even knew how to use it.

And they made the long trek back to the village.

The dog alternated between loping behind and ahead, and every now and again it would circle back and lean against one of them. _Hurry up_ , perhaps, or maybe _have courage_ , or maybe even _at least if the inquisitors get us we’ll be warm as they burn us to death_.

Joshua had sat down in the snow and refused to walk somewhere back along the trail and so William had carried him the last few miles, propped on his back, so his muscles were in agony.

He could hear singing and smell smoke, and then he saw the bonfire, built up but not yet lit, and for a horrifying moment he thought it was the inquisitors and he would have run if he’d had the strength. But then he saw the children running in front of the fire, and someone stepped into his path with something that was almost a smile, and he realised it would be about the time. The shortest day, the longest night, the winter solstice.

“Traveller,” the woman in front of him said. She was tall and iron-haired, with a lined face but a straight back. She wore the insignia of the head woman pinned to her cloak. “Where have you come from?”

Beside her stood a man with the proportions of a bull - dark-haired and glint-eyed, with fists easily twice the size of William’s own, watching them intently.

William let Joshua slide down his back, and then the boy pressed against his leg cautiously. They should have doubled around and come from the other direction, but hunger made William feel dull and stupid. Luckily he’d recited the lie often enough before, so at least that came easily enough.

“We’ve come from Valkenberg. My wife’s family is in Tubeck, and that’s where we’re headed, but I was robbed on the road. They took my horse and all but a handful of coins.” He gave a shaky smile, authentic enough. “I do not mean to beg, but while I can pay for some food, I haven’t enough for lodgings. Would there be somewhere here we could spend the night? I can work for it-“

The big man’s eyes flicked to the sword. “They didn’t take that?”

“Ah... I bought it for protection, after,” William said. “Though I’m not much of a swordsman.” The closer a lie was to the truth, the easier it was to get out.

The head woman looked at the big man. “You’ll have to excuse Stefan here,” she said, quietly. “We’ve had some problems with ... strangers, lately. But if you leave that sword in its sheath, you’ll have no problems here. You’re welcome to join us, and eat and drink your fill, and then we’ll find you somewhere to sleep.I’m Greta. What’s your name? And your boy?”

He gave their aliases - Peter and Jacob - and thanked the stars that the boy barely spoke, because it was a lot to ask a five year old to remember a false name on top of everything else. But his quiet mouth would keep them safe, or at least William hoped it would.

“And who is this?” The head woman asked, bending over to pat the dog’s head.

“Arthur,” Joshua said, in his clear high voice.

Stefan was still watching them, his face cold and hard. William told himself the big man was just being cautious, and it meant nothing.

Not long after William found himself standing, watching the village men light the bonfire, with a mug of something warm in his hand, Joshua still hanging right beside him, even though his eyes were on the children playing in the dusk. The dog had flopped down in the dirt beside his feet, tongue lolling, perfectly at ease.

William knew he was attracting stares, especially with the sword at his waist. And he knew Joshua looked nothing like him, and he knew the inquisitors would be sending word out for a man with pale hair travelling with a boy, but as he sipped some of the warm cider he couldn’t quite bring himself to care as sharply as he should.

God, he was tired, and it had only a been a few weeks. And he missed Julia, and he even missed Erasmus. It was strange, to be able to bear neither the man’s presence nor his absence.

Someone gave him and Joshua some stew and it was the best food he’d ever eaten, even if it was under-salted and the meat was still chewy.

The fire soon blazed huge and intense, sending sparks up into the night. There was singing, and young woman, maybe ten and seven, was carried in on a wooden litter with a crown of holly on her head, her face shining in the firelight. Another girl came up and took the crown off her head, and put it on her own head, and the girls swapped places, and the villagers whooped and cheered.

Joshua tugged his hand at that.

“Oh, she’s the summer queen,” William said, remembering something he’d read about once. “There’s always a winter queen and a summer queen, and they take each other’s crowns at the solstices. The days will get longer now, you see, which means that the summer queen is rising, even though it’s cold and dark for some time to come.” He didn’t say what he might have said, once, that it was a foolish superstition, that these were uneducated folk, that they should turn instead to the true ways of the church.

The inquisitors didn’t like these pagan rituals, and once he hadn’t either. But now he’d seen and felt the powers beyond what the church admitted, and there was something about these people singing in the darkness, singing to bring the summer on even through the darkest nights of the winter, that made him feel less alone.

His hand strayed to the faint scars on his chest, and he thought of Erasmus’s hands on him, the blood, how everything had gone grey and dark at the edges, and then that feeling of being lifted by a wave of light. It had felt what he’d once imagined God’s love might be like.

Joshua smiled up at him, and he smiled back, relaxing a little more. But then he looked up and saw the big man, Stefan, watching him across the fire.

___________________

The headwoman took them to sleep in the back room of her own cottage, and it was warm from the stove in her kitchen, and she gave them both thick woollen blankets.

The dog curled up protectively beside Joshua on the floor, and William propped himself on a few old sacks beside them. The cider had made him sleepy, but he stared, muzzy-headed, at the low ceiling, for longer than he would have liked, his thoughts circling each other, a pack of dogs chasing each others’ tails.

He woke with a start, and felt a hand on his face. It was the headwoman, a rushlight in one hand. The dog was watching her, alert, but not snarling.

“Inquisitors,” she whispered.

He sat up, his heart already hammering in his chest.

“They were through here a couple of days back, looking for a man with white hair, travelling with a boy,” she hissed. “They were offering a reward. Someone must have sent after them when you came last night. I’m sorry.”

He knew they shouldn’t have come, but it was too late for regrets now. The headwoman thrust a bag at him - food, he realised - and he slung it over his back, and lifted Joshua in his arms.

“This way. There’s a small gate in the side wall, I can get you through there,” she said.

“Why would you help us, if you knew?” William said as she turned away.

She looked back at him, her face hard in the flickering light.

“We’ve no love for the church here. They don’t like the old ways, and they take our boys off for their wars. Now come on.”

She extinguished the light when they were at the door and he followed her, stumbling a little, into the night. The moon was up, so it wasn’t too hard to see, but that also meant it wouldn’t be too hard to be seen either. There were voices, and he saw flickering torchlight through the houses.

“This way,” the headwoman said, and they turned away from the market square.

And then a huge shape loomed out of the dark.

“Greta.” It was Stefan, and with him were three others, men who’d spent years labouring in the fields, and William felt soft and weak and hopeless.

“Stefan!” The headwoman’s voice cracked with anger. “What have you done?”

“If you hand them over, it’ll keep them off our backs. We have to put our people first, Greta.”

“Stefan, no, we cannot just give them this child-“

But Stefan was already raising a hand to his face, and yelling out, “Over here,” and Joshua was awake and whimpering in William’s arms, and in the distance, raised voices, torchlight throwing shadows around them. Well. He wasn’t going to let them take them without a fight, even though it was bound to be a short one. He let the boy slip down, pushed him back, and pulled out the sword. He heard the dog begin to growl at his side.

 _I’m sorry_ , he said to his memory of Julia and Erasmus. _Forgive me_.

“Put the sword down, priest,” a familiar voice said, and there was a man in a long inquisitor’s cloak striding towards them, a torch in his hand.

Erasmus.


	2. The Darkest Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joshua chose that exact moment to step forward and hold out his hands towards Erasmus, and for one long moment time seemed to stretch out and grow thin and brittle. Then Erasmus had Joshua in his arms, but not in the way William had seen him lift the boy before, with sweet gentleness some times and other times throwing him in the air to make him laugh, but always with kindness. 
> 
> This time, Erasmus yanked him roughly forward and up, and had the short sword at his neck, his eyes meeting William’s over the boy’s head. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting a bit dark in these woods. But don’t worry, Arthur is ok, I promise.

“Don’t try anything foolish,” Erasmus said, his face a mask in the light from the torch. He held his short sword in one hand, and William remembered those hands on his own, showing him how to hold the sword, how to stand, how to not cut his own throat, the slide of a thumb over his knuckles.

What were his choices? To fight, or to drop the sword. He wasn’t a fighter, and he knew it. He remembered a hushed conversation, weeks and weeks ago now.

_What if we get caught?_

_Don’t get caught._

_But if we are?_

_Just keep going, Will, until you can’t anymore._

Joshua chose that exact moment to step forward and hold out his hands towards Erasmus, and for one long moment time seemed to stretch out and grow thin and brittle. Then Erasmus had Joshua in his arms, but not in the way William had seen him lift the boy before, with sweet gentleness some times and other times throwing him in the air to make him laugh, but always with kindness.

This time, Erasmus yanked him roughly forward and up, and had the short sword at his neck, his eyes meeting William’s over the boy’s head.

Joshua made an awful sound, a choked out sob, and Erasmus shook him in a way that was anything but gentle.

“No crying, boy,” he said, roughly, and that was when William dropped the sword.

One of the other inquisitors was on him in a moment and caught both his wrists, and forced them painfully behind his back, and he watched in silent horror as Erasmus shoved Joshua towards another of the soldiers. Another kicked towards the dog, and it growled at him, but then shot off into the dark.

“Forget the dog. And I’ll tie the priest up,” Erasmus barked to the soldier, “he’s a tricky one, and I want to make sure he won’t be getting away.”

William was turned around and his arms were yanked again, and then he felt Erasmus’s hot breath on his neck.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll do what I tell you.” His voice was harsh in William’s ear, and his hands were none too gentle in tying William’s wrists up, and then William’s head was yanked back and something rough and dry was forced across and then into his mouth. A cloth gag.

But then Erasmus laid a hand on his and gripped it, tightly, three times.

He’d lost his faith in god already, lost his vocation, what remained of his family, his home, his books. And now the Inquisitors had Joshua, and Erasmus was dressed in their clothes, and he couldn’t even contemplate where Julia was. All he had left was the way Erasmus’s hand had touched his.

It would have to be enough.

He could hear Joshua’s sobbing - barely more than gasps - as they marched them through the village. He wasn’t sure what had happened to Greta but he hoped they wouldn’t be too harsh with her, but he was too scared and too - horrified - to feel much guilt.

There was a wagon in the village square, low and squat, a solid thing, pulled by two immense draught-horses. It was little more than a cage on wheels. He’d seen its type before. They took the prisoners to the burnings in these wagons. In the torchlight it looked like a menacing beast.

He really didn’t want to get in that wagon, and he stopped in his tracks.

“Come on, priest,” Erasmus said, his voice low.

Standing beside it was a man in Receptor’s regalia, gold braid and a huge, ornate cross around his neck. So they’d sent a Receptor all this way, just to find them.

He looked William up and down, and then inspected Joshua, who had stopped wailing and was now just still and silent in the soldier’s arms.

“They don’t look like much,” he said, a sneer twisting his face. He had a ridiculous moustache, and William hated him instantly.

“Yes, sir, but appearances can be deceiving,” Erasmus replied.

And then William was forced into the cage, his wrists still bound behind him. Joshua was pushed in beside him, and perhaps the worst of it was that he couldn’t put his arms around the boy to console him.

He saw Erasmus sit on the wagon seat beside the driver, and then they lurched off into the dawn.

Many hours later, the wagon rolled to a stop. It was already getting darker again and it seemed much colder now, and Joshua was huddled close to him. He could see the inquisitors around them in the gathering dusk, sliding down from horseback, stretching out aching muscles after the day of riding, setting camp.

Erasmus had sat stiff-backed on the wagon seat all day - such a contrast from his usual slouching - and hadn’t turned around once. William had spent far too much time watching him. He had done something to his hair, dyed it brown.

William remembered a conversation they’d had, where he’d pointed out - rather tartly - that Erasmus wasn’t exactly inconspicuous was he, over six feet and with _that_ hair? What sort of a criminal went around looking like he did? William hadn’t meant it to come out the way it had, arch and almost flirtatious, and his face had burned with shame instantly.

But Erasmus had laughed, and said people saw what they wanted to see. And then he and Julia had started talking about walnut shells and oak galls and William had sat, listening to them talk, wondering how it might feel to touch Erasmus’s hair.

Now, here, in the cold air, the day after the solstice, Erasmus opened the cage door, his hair a dull brown, his face lined with exhaustion, and his eyes flat and hard, the eyes of a stranger.

“I don’t know why you’re bothering with them, Rufus,” one of the other inquisitors said. “They’re just going to burn then when we get to the city.”

“Doesn’t it say, in the good book, that if your enemy is hungry, you should feed him? And if he’s thirsty, give him something to drink?” Erasmus’s voicewas mocking. “As you treat the least of my people, and all that.”

“He’s a true believer, lads,” another man sneered, and there was a smattering of laughter.

“If you insist on molly coddling them like this, at least get on with it, captain,”that was the Receptor, dismounting from his horse - a glossy black destrier, a nervy thing that had trotted alongside the wagon while he watched the man and the boy in the cage for much of the day.

“The Grand Inquisitor wants them looked after.” Erasmus ducked into the cage. It was barely high enough for William to sit upright, so Erasmus had to crouch and bend his neck

He had bought them bread and water, and an extra blanket. It was stiff and smelled strongly of horse, and Joshua struggled to get it over his shoulders. Erasmus made no move to help, just sat back and frowned at them. Joshua’s face was sullen, and he didn’t look at Erasmus, just stared out through the bars. At least he wasn’t crying any more.

“I’ll untie that gag, and give you food and water, but there’ll be no talk, priest,” he said. “We know your kind can bespell men with words, and I’ll cut your tongue out if I have to, but the Grand Inquisitor would prefer you whole.”

William stared at him, and kept staring as Erasmus leaned over and yanked the gag down.

“Can you,” William said, his voice barely more than a strained whisper. “At least tie my arms in the front.”

“What did I say,” Erasmus hissed. “About talking.”

“Go on then, cut his tongue out,” one of the other men sneered through the bars. Erasmus looked at William, and William stared back.

“Do you want to keep your tongue?” Erasmus said, something moving across his face that William didn’t recognise. He nodded, stiffly.

_I’ve always put my faith in the wrong things. Is this another mistake? Too late now, if it is._

“You get one more chance, priest. Don’t test me again.”

And then he was gone again, and William let his head slump forward onto his knees.

William’s every muscle ached from being cramped in the wagon, with his hands behind him. His fingers had gone numb at some point but his wrists hadn’t, and he was sure his skin was already worn red by the rope. Joshua was silent and still, clutching that damn stuffed rabbit in one hand as he always did. At least they’d left the gag off, and Joshua had helped him drink. There was no more food, but he wasn’t hungry anyway.

At some point, he must have fallen asleep.

He woke to a hand on his ankle, and he jerked awake and kicked out, and he felt and heard the heel of his boot connecting, hard, with something in the dark. Not something, someone.

“Fuck fuck shit,” he heard in the dark.

He couldn’t even move enough to sit up, and he couldn’t _see_ anything, and he was shaking with fear.

“I am trying to rescue you,” Erasmus’s voice hissed in the shadows, “And you just kicked me in the face.”

William tried to force himself to be still. _He’d just kicked Erasmus in the face_. ”Dreadfully sorry,” he whispered back, into the shadows. “Though you were the one who captured me in the first place.”

Erasmus let out what might have been a tiny laugh. William felt him more than saw him, sliding alongside him in the dark, fingers brushing along his thigh and hip.

“Roll over, let me get to your hands,” Erasmus said, and William did as best he could, trying not to make any pathetic whimpering noises about the pain. Erasmus’s hands were on his wrists, and he felt a tug as the other man sliced through the bonds, and then he was free.

He let out a tiny series of groans then, of relief and then also from the whole new sort of pain that was firing up his arms as he pushed himself up.

“You right?” Erasmus whispered. William felt his hands again, gentle on his wrists, so gentle compared to how rough he’d been before. Up his arms, and then a touch on the side of his neck.

“Not really,” he whispered, trying to keep his voice steady.

Erasmus made a low noise. “I know. But I need you to move now, because I don’t know how long the sleeping powder will last.”

“You drugged them?”

“In the stew.”

“Of course,” William said, but he didn’t want to move, he wanted to sit in the dark and feel Erasmus’s warm hands on his skin, forever. But Erasmus was moving away, so he shuffled his way painfully out of the wagon and then Erasmus followed, still-sleeping Joshua bundled in his arms.

The low fire illuminated the shapes of men sleeping on the ground

“Can you carry Joshua? I need to get something,” Erasmus asked, and William took the boy even though his arms felt like they were on fire. He saw Erasmus’s tall shape loping over to the tent the inquisitors had erected, and ducking inside

William stood, waiting for what felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes. Around him, the men were very still, and the night was quiet, so he could hear their breathing. A part of him wanted to put Joshua down, and slit their throats where they lay, but even though he’d never been a good man, he was at least better than they were. Better than the torturers, the child killers, the ones who murdered men while they slept. 

“What were you doing?” William whispered when Erasmus finally came out. “Kissing your new Receptor friend goodbye?”

“Just acquiring some discretionary funds,” Erasmus said, his hand on William’s shoulder, drawing him to the tree line. “And-“

That was when a man stood up, groggy and staggering, but awake, from where he’d been slumped against a tree, and saw them.

It happened in a blur, and William barely had time to comprehend what was happening, but Erasmus was moving, and crashed into the man. There was a furious scuffle, and then he saw a flash of metal in the firelight. There was a low groan, and then the sentry was still.

Erasmus staggered up, and then leaned over and pulled his knife out of the man’s chest with a horrible wet sucking sound.

“Let’s go,” he said, his voice tight. “I’d rather not have to do that again.”

It was so dark in the woods that it seemed impossible to navigate more than a few feet, but somehow Erasmus could see where he was going, and with one hand clamped on William’s arm led him through the looming shadows of the trees and bushes.

“I’m glad you know where you’re going,” William whispered, and Erasmus snorted.

“Julia has a spell now that can make you see in the dark. She’s a clever girl. She learned a lot of new tricks since we saw you last.”

 _Whereas all I’ve managed to do was get us captured,_ William thought grimly.

As the light increased, William found himself glancing guiltily at Erasmus. The man’s face was livid above his brow and the one golden-brown eye starting to swell shut. It looked like it hurt. Erasmus obviously hadn’t been expecting him to struggle - why would he, this was soft useless William. He wanted to apologise, but he couldn’t think of how to say it.

Joshua squirmed, and William put him down, glad for a chance to rest his arms. They were in a part of the woods that looked much the same as every part of the woods they’d been in recently, and the sky overhead was dark and low. Snow was coming. Their breath puffed white in the air.

Joshua looked around, his eyes huge, then he saw Erasmus, and his tiny body went stiff.

Erasmus knelt and reached out to touch the boy, but Joshua turned his head away and squirmed into William’s side, clutching his toy rabbit to his face and rubbing the fabric on his cheek.

“Bad,” he said into William’s tunic. “You were with the bad men.”

“I suppose that’s fair enough,” Erasmus said, with something William might once have thought was a sneer, but now he knew better and saw it for what it was. . He dropped his hand, and William ached to take it, and to force Joshua to turn around, and to make it better somehow.

“He was helping us,” he said instead. “Erasmus is our friend - Joshua- please-”

“It’s all right, Will,” Erasmus stood, brushing dirt from his knees. “He’s right. I was with the bad men. But I only did it to keep you safe. I’d do anything to keep you safe.” He looked anywhere but at William and the boy, his voice rough.

Joshua only shook his head, and William didn’t know what to do, except to stand, pick the boy up, and keep going.

**Author's Note:**

> This is me answering the question of what the Holiday Special would look like.
> 
> Waiting until this series resumes in February is going to kill me.


End file.
